Guns, Jobs, Clean Streets Motivate Newhallville Voters

The issues of gun violence, good jobs, and clean streets brought Newhallville voters to the polls Tuesday, as they came out to choose a mayor, city-town clerk, and new local legislative representative for Ward 20.

Those were some of the issues brought up by Newhallville voters midday Tuesday as they walked to and from the polling place in the cafeteria of Lincoln Bassett School on Bassett Street.

Newhallville’s Ward 20 is one of roughly a half-dozen contested aldermanic races in this year’s municipal elections.

Ward 20 voters are deciding between Democrat Devin Avshalom-Smith and independent Addie Kimbrough (who petitioned her way onto the general election ballot after losing September’s Democratic primary to Avshalom-Smith). Both are vying to fill the aldermanic seat that has been occupied for the past decade by Delphine Clyburn, who recently resigned her post after moving to City Point.

Also on the ballot: mayoral candidates Justin Elicker, the one-term Democratic incumbent; Republican John Carlson; and Independent Macey Torres. And incumbent Democrat Michael Smart is running for a fifth two-year term as city/town clerk. Republican Anthony Acri is challenging him.

In the brisk fall sunshine, Avshalom-Smith, Kimbrough, and their respective supporters stood a few feet apart near the elementary school’s parking lots, making last-minute pitches to voters as they headed to the polls.

“I’m so happy to see Newhallville is now ready to take things to the next level,” said Avshalom-Smith, flanked by community management team leaders Jeanette Sykes and Kim Harris.

He said the comments he’d heard most frequently from voters on Tuesday were about how the city plans to spend its $100 million-plus in federal Covid-relief money, as well as about the need for more good-paying, secure, and accessible jobs for people of all abilities — including those with special needs.

Kimbrough offered a succinct response when asked for her closing pitch: ​“Vote for me,” she said. She emphasized that she’s still a registered Democrat, even her name doesn’t appear on the Democratic line on the ballot because she lost the primary.

Harris, a local preschool teacher who also chairs the Newhallville Community Management Team, showed up to the polls with a half-dozen Harris-Tucker School students.

“I really love all the people running for alder,” she said. ​“For me, Devin is the one who I believe can really collaborate, work together,” and bring the neighborhood together. ​“It’s time for us to know that possibilities are possible.”

She said that neighborhood ​“unity” is at the top of her priority list this election season. ​“This race was a hard race.”

She also said she’s been thinking a lot about economic development, and how whoever wins the aldermanic and mayoral races needs to focus on bringing some of the surge in new housing, jobs, construction, and economic vitality downtown up to Newhallville. She said the pending redevelopment of Science Park promises one such potentially transformative project.

“Development is good, but we want development without displacement,” she said. That means that whatever new jobs and new housing and new construction that comes to the neighborhood should also be open to people who live in Newhallville, and shouldn’t just push them out. ​“Prosperity” and ​“wellness” are two words she likes to bring up all the time with her pre-school students — so that they get used to those concepts being used around them, and so that they know they are as deserving of the wealth and growth taking place elsewhere in New Haven as people in other neighborhoods are.

Janie Scott has lived on Bassett Street for 47 years. She was less optimistic than others about Tuesday’s election.

“Nothing’s gonna change” regardless of who wins the aldermanic and mayoral races, she said as she left the polling place.

She said the top issues in the neighborhood for her are ​“there’s too much noise, and people don’t clean.” ​“The neighborhood needs to be cleaned up,” she said. And some elected official needs to find a way to stop her neighbors from ​“blasting music” at all hours.

Jeanette Sykes said she’s supporting Avshalom-Smith for alder because she thinks that, working hand in hand with the management team, he’s best positioned to advocate for neighbors and address some of those very same quality-of-life concerns.

“Depends on the street,” Sykes said when asked about the biggest issues facing the ward today. On some, it’s street cleaning; on others, it’s the need for more speed humps; on another, it’s the need for tree trimming.

“We need to make sure that the Newhallville platform stays strong” and that the neighborhood still has a ​“confident, strong leader” in the Aldermanic Chambers, now that Ward 20’s long-time alder has stepped down.

Larry Diggs, who lives on Dorman Street, said his top concern about life in Newhallville today is rising gun violence. ​“The shootings. That’s the number one issue,” he said. ​“It’s crazy,” with a new shooting seemingly taking place every other night.

What’s the solution he’d like to see from City Hall? More cops would help, he said. More police walking in the neighborhood. The most important thing is for elected officials to ​“do something about it.” Because the status quo isn’t working.

Another Newhallville resident, who declined to give his name for this article, said that ​“public safety” and ​“community policing” are also at the top of the list of what he’d like to see the mayor and the ward’s new alder focus on upon taking office next year. He said police officers rarely stop to say hello — instead just driving or walking by, even when he’s outdoors.

He said he shouldn’t have to initiate a conversation with beat cops, they should be friendly and open and willing to talk and get to know the neighborhood they serve.

Bassett Street resident Myrna Taylor walked to the polls on Tuesday with her 11-year-old grandson, Dominick Gomez.

Taylor said she’s a registered Democrat — but beyond that, she doesn’t follow local politics too closely.

“My philosophy is I don’t do politics.” With one big caveat, she said. She knows it’s her civic responsibility to vote, and so she never misses an election. ​“It’s my responsibility.”

Janell Nelson, meanwhile, was at Ward 20’s polling place Tuesday not to vote — but to help give out free clothes and shoes to those in need.

Nelson is the president of a group calls Ladyz of Legacy. She said they travel around the city, setting up tables and coatracks with free clothes to give out to any women and children who need them.

“We’re a women’s group trying to do something positive,” she said. Even though she doesn’t live in Ward 20, she and a half-dozen fellow Ladyz of Legacy volunteers set up shop outside Lincoln Bassett Tuesday because they knew that it was one of the busiest polling places in the city.

By 12:50 p.m., 156 people had voted at the Ward 20 polling place, according to the polling place’s vote counting machine.